


One Good Turn

by PrinceofHellebore (PrinceofPlants)



Category: Lupin (TV 2021)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, One-Sided Attraction, Period-Typical Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 14:41:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29420295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrinceofPlants/pseuds/PrinceofHellebore
Summary: Benjamin would deny knowing the moment he fell in love with Assane Diop, but he did.
Relationships: Assane Diop & Benjamin Ferel
Comments: 6
Kudos: 15





	One Good Turn

**Author's Note:**

> So I have only watched through the show once. But immediately was hit with the pining/unrequited potential in Benjamin’s character. Or frankly the Bi potential in Assane, though thats for a different fic later.

Benjamin would deny knowing the moment he fell in love with Assane Diop, but he did. Ben was eighteen, in his final year at Andrésy, Diop was sixteen and grown suddenly tall but not yet filled out. Ben had been waiting in the office of the Dean of Students, stomach roiling. He’d been accused of cheating on his exams, fraudulent evidence had been brought forward and now he faced expulsion, the ruination and disgrace of his scholarship. All because he’d been foolish enough to express his attraction to a peer who did not feel the same. Ben’s fingers twitched on the handle of his briefcase. He had no defense, nothing that would be believed and then Assane had been ushered into the room and pushed into a chair. 

Assane pressed a cloth, white save for the blood seeping into it against his nose and tilted his head to try to stem the flow. He glanced at Ben, smiled below his hand and then winked. Ben had no idea what Assane meant by the gesture. They had had little contact after their initial meeting, but Ben could pick Assane out from across the hall or grounds easily since he was the only black student there and had kept up an awareness of him over the years. He knew for example that Assane kept company with Claire and that the two boys who had picked on Assane that first afternoon had maintained their animosity.

“What happened?” Ben asked. 

“This? It’s hardly anything. Misjudged and walked into someone’s fist.”

“Quite the misjudgment unless they were holding them up for you.” Ben’s anxiety hadn’t gone but Assane was enough of a distraction that he no longer thought he’d be sick. 

“Yes well...” Assane shrugged. 

The office door opened, “Diop, come.”

Assane pulled the cloth from his face, looked at it and then pressed it back. Ben saw his eye was swelling slightly. He hoped that the offense wasn’t enough to see Diop expelled. 

Ben had to wait a long time; the other boys that had been involved in the fight were fetched through a little while later and after a time of raised voices the lot of them were dismissed. Assane was no longer holding the bloody cloth to his face and smiled and winked again at Ben as he passed. 

“Ferel.” Ben stood and tried to hold his head high despite his nerves. 

The meeting was a blur in his memory. The dean had examined the so called evidence and found nothing suspicious in it. He’d asked if there had been cause for a false accusation and Ben had lied about a dispute over a girl’s affection and then suggested jealousy over his consistently high marks as an alternative. 

Then Ben was standing in the hall outside, bewildered that he had escaped what he thought was a certainty. He took a heaving breath, he felt as though he hadn’t taken a proper full breath in hours. 

“That bad?” Assane leaned against the wall. There was a spot of blood on his collar. 

“Less so than I had thought it would be. Since when do you get in fights?”

“I get in fights all the time just usually where they can’t be seen.”

“So what made this one different?”

“I had to defend a friend.”

“Who? Claire?”

“You,” and he smiled, sly, half his mouth curling up and his eyes wrinkling with self satisfaction. And Ben fell in love with that smile. 

“You did something in the office? Swapped out the evidence or... or... I can’t imagine what?”

“Something like that.”

“Thank you, I didn’t think that we were close enough friends that you’d risk your place here for me.”

“You did me a kindness when I was bullied for something I cannot help, nor change, nor would want to if I could. When I heard you were in a similar situation... well you deserved repayment.”

Ben shook his head, the words were a relief; he could hear the underlying meaning, the knowledge of hidden truth and its acceptance in them. Ben smiled, “That may be so, but I think the balance is now in your favor, can I buy you lunch, I have a little allowance that would afford us something finer than the fare available in the dining hall?”

Assane accepted and the shared lunch quickly became a habitual thing that lasted years.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading. I’d love to hear what you think.  
> Love,  
> Prince of Hellebore


End file.
